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THE AMEEIOAK"
Journal of Psychology
Founded by G. Stanley Hai,i, in 1887.
Vol,. XVIII. JULY, 1907. No. 3.
THE PSYCHOLOGY OF CHESS AND OF LEARNING
TO PLAY IT.
By Alfred a. Clbveland.
Outline.
Introduction. Page
I. The Psychology of the Game 270
1. Chess as a form of human play 270
Varieties of the game 270
Instinctive factors 271
2. General Features of Chess from a psychological point
of view 273
The emotional effects of play 273
Personal and temperamental differences of players . 274
3. Attainments of players of average ability . . . 274
Ability to plan moves ahead 274
Visual imagination 275
Ability to take in large sections of the board . . 276
Reconstruction of the status of an unfinished game . 276
" Position sense " 277
Different grades of chess players 278
4. Attainments of the chess masters 278
Simultaneous play 279
Recapitulation of games and other feats of memory . 279
Announcement of mate in advance 281
Blindfold play 281
The relation of skill in play to general mental ability . 287
5. Special psychology of the game 287
Forms of mental activity required 187
The stages of the game and their logical types . . 288
The opening and end games 288
The middle game 289
Psychological restatement of the logical types . . 291
II. The Psychology of the Learning of the Game . . . 292
1. General description of the learning process in chess . 292
2. Discussion of the learning process 297
3. Aids to learning 303
III. General summary of psychological points .... 305
Appendix : On the Case of a Feeble-minded Chess Player 306
270 CLBVKLAND :
In this study an attempt is made to sketch the psychology
of the game of chess, to trace the stages in the development of
a chess player, and to interpret this progress in psychological
terms. That the task, owing to the complexity of the pro-
cesses involved and the impossibility of applying anything like
satisfactory objective tests, is a difficult one, is obvious, but it
is one that seems to the writer worth attempting.'
I. Thb Psychology of the Game.
Chess is, as every one knows, a mimic battle fought upon a
field of sixty-four squares with pieces moved according to an
elaborate system and having powers suggestive of a variety of
fighting units. The purpose of each player is to checkmate
his opponent, that is, to hem in and threaten the latter's king
in such a fashion that he is subject to capture at the next move.
In our discussion of the psychology of the game it will be con-
venient to consider it first as a form of human play and then to
take up more particularly the mental powers involved.
I. Chess as a Form of Human Play .
Forms and Varieties of the Game. The game of chess has
not been confined to any particular age, race, country, or class.
It is without doubt one of the oldest, if not the oldest, of the
intellectual pastimes, and it is the game of skill par excellence.
Its origin is not definitely known and there have been many
claimants for the honor of its invention."
Especially in its later history the game has developed a num-
ber of off-shoots in specialties which for many people share the
interest of play across the board. The chief of these is the
composition and solving of chess problems, which now has
quite a literature and many devotees. Another is correspond-
ence play, in which the strict rules of the typical game are
somewhat relaxed on account of the peculiar conditions of play.
Others, practiced as feats, but of especial psychological interest,
are blindfold playing, to which Binet has devoted a special
research,' and the playing of many games at once (either blind-
folded or with sight of the board). To some of these special
forms we shall return later.
It is a pleasure to acknowledge my indebtedness to Professor E.
C. Sauford for the suggestion of this topic of study, and for generous
assistance in following it out ; to Dr. C. A. Drew and others at the
Massachusetts State Farm for courtesies extended ; to those who in the
capacity of assistants have contributed much to this study; and to all
who have answered my questionnaire on chess or assisted in securing
answers to it.
^ The history of chess may be followed in Porbes's History of Chess,
and in Dr. Van der Linde's book on its history and literature.
'Binet, Alfred: Psychologie des grands Calculateurs at Jouenrs d'
Echecs, Denxi^me Partie, Paris, 1894.
THB PSYCHOLOGY OF CHESS. 27 1
Instinctive Factors in Chess Playing. Chess is, as we have
said, a game of wide distribution and popularity. Dr. Kmanuel
Lasker states that over one million English speaking people
know the game, that there are in the United States, England
and Canada between seven and eight hundred good sized chess
clubs, many of which have over one hundred members each,
and that the City of I/Ondon Club has over four hundred mem-
bers;* and judging from the number of chess clubs, chess periodi-
cals and players of high rank in Germany, France, Russia,
Austria, and Poland chess is no less popular in those countries.
If one were asked what class or classes of people play chess one
might truthfully reply that all classes play it.
The question then arises: Why has chess proved so widely
popular at all times and in all places? How has it been possi-
ble for a game making severe intellectual demands to hold a
place historically and in geographical distribution beside such
universal forms of human play as gambling, horse-racing,
athletics, and hunting, and to claim devotees, if less numerous, at
any rate as loyal as any of these? The answer is, of course,
that, in common with a multitude of other games and sports,
it appeals to the fundamental instinct of combat, in a way that
is direct and at the same time exempt from the anti-social
features that are inherent in actual physical combat. Here
lies a large share of its attractiveness, and its capacity for stir-
ing emotion. It takes hold upon tho.se suppressed survivals of
savage impulse (if we are to credit the savage alone with a first
hand liking for a contest) which in their modified exercise have
been shown to be so large a factor in adult sport. ^
In this, however, it shows but the typical qualities of the
genus to which it belongs — that it is one of the strongly com-
petitive games.^ Its own specific attractiveness lies in the fact
that it is a competitive game of skill, more particularly of in-
tellectual skill as opposed to merely manual or bodily dexterity;
it is a contest of scheme against scheme; it is a game of gen-
eralship.^ Each particular situation appeals to the player, not
only as an occasion for attack or defense, but also as a situation
to be met by taking thought, a difiiculty to be seen through
and overcome, a problem to be solved. There is, therefore, in
chess playing all the challenge that lies in baffling but fas-
cinating problems and much of that which lies in the solution
of puzzles. That the interest in this aspect of chess is real and
important is abundantly evidenced by the growth of the chess
iJ^asker's Chess Magazine, Vol. I, No. i, Nov. 1904. p. 48.
'^ Patrick : The Psychology of Football. Am. four. Psy., Vol. XIV,
1903. PP- 368-381.
^Groos: The Play of Man, New York, 1901. pp. 173 ff.
*Groos: op. cit., p. 190.
272 CLBVBLAND :
"problem," of which we shall have more to say presently.
I^indley in his "Study of Puzzles"* holds it likely that in the
puzzle solving passion we have a form of the preparatory play
impulse to which Groos rightly attributes so much of both ani-
mal and human play.*
Still another factor of interest in chess is the pleasure of in-
vention and origination, the pleasure of being a cause.' In the
returns of my correspondents a decided preference is expressed
for original plans of attack and defense.* Most say that they
get away from the standard book plays as soon as possible after
the first few moves. Some say that they play from book not
from choice, but from necessity; but most say that while they
follow the book openings for a few moves, they prefer to get
away from them as soon as they possibly can without detri-
ment to their game. They prefer their own game because it is
more real, and is a better representative of their own ideas.
As one player puts it, ' ' There is little satisfaction in catching
your opponent on a line of play that you have simply memor-
ized." There are, also, of course, various practical reasons
for this preference. An original plan throws both players on
their merits and removes the game at once, so far as possible,
from a mere memory exercise, thus depriving a plajer of the
advantage which a superior memory or a better knowledge of
book games might give. There is an advantage to the player
himself in an original plan in that his game is more likely to be
a unit and consequently more consistently played than one
partly remembered and partly originated. While the inability
to remember particular lines of play is undoubtedly a determining
factor in the choice between an original plan and what is known
as book play, nevertheless, there is something attractive about
a game which one feels to be his own, especially if it is suc-
cessful.
In summary we may say of chess as a form of human play
that in the first place it is a contest, and, as such, it appeals to
the fundamental fighting instinct, the instinct which in every
normal individual impels him to measure his skill with that of
1 Ivindley : A Study of Puzzles, Am. Jour. Psy., VIII, 1897, pp. 431-
493, especially p. 437.
2 Groos : op. cit., pp. 369 ff.
'Groos : op. cit., p. 385.
* In order to supplement my own observations and those of my assist-
ants, a questionnaire was submitted to chess players of different grades
of ability. The list of players answering is a fairly representative one
and contains the names of some of the best amateurs of the United
States and Canada. Some of the data from this source are specifically
included in this study, but in many other cases the substance of the
views expressed has been incorporated without more acknowledg-
ment than is here made. About 100 knswers in all were obtained.
THE PSYCHOLOGY OF CHBSS. 273
Others. In the second place chess offers its devotees oppor-
tunity to exercise their ingenuity in the solution of problems
and puzzles, a form of pleasure that may well rest upon that
general interest in the unknown which at one time must have
had the greatest survival value. It would seem further, that
intellectual activity is indulged in for the pleasure which such
activity gives in itself, and sport of this kind is, perhaps, an
expression of the general play instinct. "Intelligence," as
Lindley holds, ' 'is no exception to the law of exercise. Just
as those animals, which by fortunate variation were born with
a tendency to indulge in preliminary exercise of those activities
which were to serve the serious ends of adult life, were favored
by natural selection, and were able to transmit such advantages
in the form of general play instincts, so in a more special way
those creatures, endowed with the strongest tendencies to ex-
ploit the intelligence, may have perpetuated this superiority as
a general intellectual play instinct. ' ' '■ Again, the chess strategy
of an individual is largely the product of his own brain; it is
his own, and merely as such is interesting to him. No matter
where or how he got his knowledge of the game, if he is any-
thing of a player, he has assimilated it and made it a part of
his mental self, and his game, in turn, reflects something of his
personality. There is also what might be termed a secondary,
derived or aesthetic interest in chess, namely, in the finer and
subtler points of the game, in what the chess world calls its
"brilliancies." Appreciation of and consequent admiration
for the skill of others is a contributory element in this pleasure.
And finally it is, notwithstanding its own exacting demands, a
means of mental relaxation and as such is attractive to the
mental worker.
2. Gbnbrai< Features of Chess from a^Psychological
Point of View.
The Emotional Effects of Play. We have already alluded in-
cidentally to the emotions which may be stirred by the chess
combat. The desire to win is fundamentally connected with
the fighting instinct.'' Young and ardent players especially
find the elation of victory and the bitterness of defeat by no
means small; they work hard at the game and feel the outcome
in proportion to their efforts. The chess manuals and maga-
iLindley: op. cit., p. 437.
^This instinct in man, we are told, is being gradually overcome or
suppressed. It would be interesting to note, however, whether in the
contests which still give opportunity for it, there is any lessening of
the desire to win, and whether individuals change at all in this re-
gard. The fact probably is that the instinct is changing its form with
social pressure, but losing little of its native power.
274 CLBVEi<AND :
zines repeat suggestions as to how one should wear his laurels
or accept defeat, but in spite of this well intended advice every
chess club has its members who invariably make excuses for
every lost game. A good many players, however, have the
sportsman's feeling strongly developed and are not unpleasantly
affected if they are conscious of having played well. They do
not enjoy winning if their victory is the result of a "fluke" on
their own part or of a palpable oversight on the part of their
opponent.
Personal and Temperamental Differences of Players. The
opinion is general among chess players that a man's tempera-
ment enters into his play and determines its style. Many of
my correspondents state that they have recognized and often
utilized this factor in actual play by forcing an opponent to
adopt a line of play for which he was unfitted by temperament.
For example, a slow, careful game is played against the aggres-
sive and daring player, who is often provoked by these Fabian
tactics into recklessness and loss.
Chess players are also very firm in the belief that one's
game is an index of his character in a wider sense, and no one
will be likely to deny that the fundamental traits of character
are revealed in unimportant matters especially when one be-
comes so deeply absorbed that he forgets all else. Chess ofiers
just such an opportunity for deep absorption, and it is not un-
reasonable to suppose that one's real rather than his conven-
tional character will reveal itself
3. Attainments of Players of Average Experience.
In order to form some conception of the skill and knowledge
which a chess player of average experience possesses, let us
consider (a) his ability to plan moves ahead and to anticipate
those of his opponent; (b) to disentangle a complicated situa-
tion; (c) to reconstruct the status of an unfinished game from
memory; and lastly, (d) his "position sense." For informa-
tion on these points I shall, of course, have to depend almost
wholly on the replies of my correspondents.
Ability to Plan Moves Ahead. It is evident from the variety
of answers to the questions on these points and the qualifica-
tions attached to many of them that the questions were inter-
preted in a variety of ways. Some points seem clear, however.
The number varies from position to position, is dependent upon
the number and positions of the pieces and the player's physi-
cal and mental condition at the time. Very few stated any
definite number of moves which they thought they usually
planned ahead, but allowed a considerable margin. The fol-
lowing are typical of the answers received: — "five to ten,"
"two to six," "two to ten," "six to ten," "three to seven."
THB PSYCHOLOGY OF CHBSS. 275
Very few state that they are unable to plan at least three moves
ahead in a complicated situation. Four, five, and six are favor-
ite numbers.
Most state that they can anticipate as many of their oppo-
nent's moves as they plan for themselves, and that they do so
habitually. A few state, on the other hand, that they can
anticipate only a much smaller number of their opponent's
moves.
Almost without exception my correspondents write that
practice has greatly increased both numbers, but especially the
number of the opponent's moves that can be foreseen. A few
who have played a great many years or who seldom play now,
say that the number has decreased. While with most players
the increase in number has been considerable, the increase in
accuracy has been the main gain. The beginner, owing to the
great number of possibilities, is not able to plan far ahead and
scarcely thinks of his opponent's plans at all. A little later he
plans two, three, and four moves, but he overlooks so many
possibilities that his plans are practically worthless. Progress
in this regard consists first in the increasing ability to perceive
the most likely and feasible continuations both on his own part
and that of his opponent; second, in refusing to reconsider lines
of play after going over them carefully once and discarding
them; and third in increased ease, rapidity and accuracy in
calculation.
Visual Imagination. It was asked ' ' Can you imagine, pic-
torially, what difference in the position a move would make, or
are you absolutely without such an image, relying wholly on
successive associations of one move with another?" The
answers seem to indicate that there are three classes of players
in this regard. There are, first, those who have a clear visual
picture of the situation as it will appear after a series of moves;
secondly, those who have some visual picture, but rely also on
successive associations, in verbal or possibly motor terms, of
one move with another, that is, they are unable to picture a
resulting situation, but must build it up move by move by
means of visual and other kinds of imagery. With these players
the final term is probably held in verbal terms. The last class
of players are those who are without a visual image of any
sort. The first class is perhaps the smallest. The players in
this group state that the presence of the pieces is not only not
an aid in planning combinations, but that it is a positive hind-
rance. They have difficulty in imagining a piece in a changed
situation or on a square which is at that time occupied by
another piece when the pieces are on the board before them."
1 Binet : op. cit., p. 236.
276 CLEVELAND :
Binet quotes Selkirk approvingly as saying that in working
out a plan one is obliged to represent to himself the position of
the pieces after each supposed move and that the sight of the
board only confuses. Dr. Tarrasch, the German master, holds
that all games are played in part without sight of the board
and that consequently visual imagery is an essential factor in
planning moves ahead, especially in far reaching combinations.'
This statement, it seems to the writer, is valid only for players
of the first class mentioned above. The players of the second
group have some picture but find the presence of the pieces in-
dispensable; while those of the third group rely wholly on the
presence of the pieces. In some cases this dependence on the
pieces is largely a matter of habit, since the players state that
while they rely almost exclusively on successive associations,
nevertheless, they can often discover errors in their games when
the board is not before them.
Ability to take in Large Sections of the Board. Most of the
players state that when getting ready to move they can readily
take in the whole disposition of their men, or, in other words,
they can comprehend the board as a whole. This ability to
take in readily the whole disposition of the men is generally
regarded as one of the signs of a considerable degree of chess
skill. Ability in this regard varies with the physical and
mental condition of the player and with the complexity of the
situation. The explanation of the gain in skill of this sort
seems to be that, as a player progresses in skill, the game takes
on more and more meaning and that the individual moves become
more and more a part of a definite series or of a number of
series each with some particular end in view. The different
moves and situations, also, as they are handled in larger masses,
are dealt with in an increasingly symbolic manner. A more
detailed consideration of this will be taken up in another sec-
tion.
Reconstruction of the Status of an Unfinished Game. Little
or no trouble is experienced by most players in setting up an
unfinished game from memory, provided the game itself was
interesting and too great a time had not elapsed. The number
of pieces on the board is also a factor, though it would appear
that it is not of very great importance. A very few state that
they can do this only when they are playing regularly. One
player reports that he retains a position in correspondence play
for a month without difficulty, and another that he is engaged
at present in eleven correspondence games and that he retains
the positions in all of them without reference to his record.
Different methods are employed in the reconstruction, but all
1 Binet: ibid.
THB PSYCHOLOGY OF CHESS. 277
are reducible to two types, namely, setting up the final position,
and replaying the game from the start. Some are able to do
either. There are different varieties of the first method. Some
seem to have a mental picture of the whole board and to ar-
range their pieces accordingly. They have photographed the
situation as a whole and the eye tells them if anything is out
of order or missing. Analogous to this in a small way is the
ability to see a misspelled word in proof-reading. Others also
reconstruct the final position as a whole, but do it by remem-
bering crucial situations and building around them. This
memory may be in terms of almost any sort of imagery, but it
is most likely to be in visual terms. Verbal imagery also plays
an important part. The plan of attack or a certain situation
in that attack, is very often the central point from which the
position is built up. This would mean that the steps which
had been planned ahead were also factors in the recall. Some-
times it is necessary to begin back of the final position at some
important place and to build up to it. The second method,
that of replaying the game from the beginning, means the run-
ning over of a series of successive associations aided and guided
by the critical points and by the general plan of the whole
game which gives a meaning to the individual moves. The
reconstruction from memory of a position involving any con-
siderable number of pieces is not possible to most beginners.
If they are of the photographic mental type they get lost in
the mass of impressions which the situation involves, and if of
the verbal or some other type the situation has not sufficient
meaning to give definite place and order to so many pieces.
' 'Position Sense. ' ' Among chess players and writers on chess
great stress is laid on what is called "position sense," that is,
the knack of knowing in an intricate situation how to place
the men to the best advantage. It is a common observation
that many chess players are able to tell at a glance which
player has the better position without being able to give off-
hand any reason for the opinion. It is even stated that many
players are able to give a correct judgment at times without
being able to carry out the analysis necessary to prove its cor-
rectness. Bird, the well known English player, used often, in
consultation play, to point out the move with the remark that
the others might analyze as much as they liked, but that he
felt and knew that it was the right move, and it is said that he
was generally right. With scarcely an exception all who an-
swered the question stated that they have noted a considerable
improvement in "position sense." Many state that improve-
ment in the sense of position and chess improvement are one
and the same thing. This latter statement is a little too sweep-
ing, however, since it does not necessarily follow that the mere
278 CLEVELAND :
knowledge of the strength or weakness of a position will en-
able one to choose the best of the infinite possibilities which
arise at every step. Experience is the blanket term which
most use in the attempt to explain the development of "posi-
tion sense." The player is said to "feel" the position or the
proper move. Some interesting reasons are given, however, to
account for the ability to judge a position at a glance. In
brief they are somewhat as follows : The mind has been drilled
to feel any deviation from principles ; it is due to a vague idea
of similar situations leading to success or failure ; it is the
recognition of several fundamental points of strength or weak-
ness ; and lastly, it is a symbolic shortening, a dropping out of
intermediate processes of inference. Perhaps we should not
be wrong in saying that it is all of these. It is undoubtedly
the product of experience and involves the same sorts of psy-
chic processes that are employed in the formation of general
ideas — abstraction and generalization. Players of equal expe-
rience differ so widely in "position sense" that it seems rea-
sonable to suppose that there is a difference in their native
endowment in this capacity, just as, according to Professor
James, people are differently endowed with the capacity for
memorizing. "Position sense" is, however, not dependent on
memory alone.
Different Grades of Chess Players. Certain mental qualities
are essential to the chess player who attains any degree of pro-
ficiency whatever, and players differ both in their relative and
their absolute endowment of these qualities. Master players
combine to a marked degree an accurate and persistent chess
memory, quickness of perception, strong constructive imagina-
tion, power of accurate analysis and a far seeing power of com-
bination. It is impossible to say j ust what the proper proportion
of these qualities should be, and to be ideal it would have to be
modified to meet each new opponent. When these various
qualities are combined in something like the proper proportion
we have what is generally designated as a separate quality,
namely, "judgment." But when we say that a player has
good judgment in chess do we mean more than that he com-
bines in something like the proper proportions the qualities
which make up the uniformly consistent and successful chess
player?
4. Attainments of the Chess Masters.
We have attempted to give some idea of the endowment of
the chess player of fair ability and have avoided all reference to
the remarkable achievements of the chess masters. The feats
of some of these are certainly marvellous, and one is apt to
think that genius alone can account for them. The chess ex-
THB PSYCHOLOGY OF CHBSS. 279
pert displays his skill under one or all of four forms, namely,
Simultaneous Play, in which several games are played at the
same time against as many opponents; Blindfold Play ; Recapi-
tulation of Games played by himself or others; and, in actual
play, by the Announcement of the End of the Game several
moves before that event.
Simultaneous Play. In simultaneous play the lone player,
of course, never plays against those of his own rank, but usually
against strong local players who are able to take advantage of
any oversight. As examples of what can be done, the follow-
ing, recorded in the different chess magazines, may be cited: —
Gunsberg played eighteen games simultaneously against as
many opponents, winning fourteen, losing three and drawing
one; Bird played nineteen, winning fifteen, losing one and
drawing one; Herr Schallop in four and one-half hours played
forty simultaneous games, winning thirty-three, losing five, and
drawing two; Lasker played twenty-two games, winning nine-
teen, losing two and drawing one. Since that time he has
often played thirty games simultaneously. As an example of
the rapidity of moves made in simultaneous play Napier's twenty-
one games should be cited. During the first hour he made
four hundred and fifty moves, an average of nearly eight per
minute. Of the twenty-one games he won eighteen, lost two
and drew one. Evidently simultaneous play requires the ability
to focus the attention strongly on a single game, to banish for
the time being every other game from the mind, to call up in-
stantly at the sight of any board just what combinations it had
been planned to carry out there, and finally to recognize and
meet a situation promptly. In all such feats experience is an
indispensable factor. The player who plays several games at
the same time relies on his knowledge of position, gained
through long practice, to give him a quick grasp of the essen-
tial situations as he passes from board to board. ^ This factor
and the power of concentration seem to account for the distinct-
ive features of simultaneous play.
Recapitulation of Games and Other Feats of Pure Memory.
The recapitulation of games is a feat of memory pure and sim-
ple. The player simply plays over, or dictates from memory
games which he himself or which others have played. The
games thus enumerated may consist of fifty or even more moves
on each side making sometimes a total of one hundred or more
individual moves. Morphy , the next morning after his blindfold
contest against eight other players at Paris, dictated to his
secretary all of the moves in each of the eight games. Morphy's
1 A player of perfect "position sense" could play any number of
games ad hoc without recalling anything.
28o CLBVatAND :
secretary, in his book entitled "Exploits and Triumphs in
Europe of Paul Morphy," gives the following account of the
performance: — ' 'Next morning Morphy actually awakened me
at seven o'clock and told me if I would get up he would dictate
to me the moves of yesterday's games. I never saw him in
better spirits nor less fatigued than on that occasion, as he
showed me for two long hours the hundreds of variations de-
pending upon the play of the previous day, with such rapidity
that I found it hard work to follow the thread of his combina-
tions. " ^ In speaking of Morphy's knowledge of games played
by Anderson, he writes: "With his astonishing memory he
gave me battle after battle with different adversaries, variations
and all."' And in another place, "What wonderment he has
caused with his omnipotent memory. I have seen him sit for
hours at the Divan or the Regents, playing over, not merely
his own battles, but the contests of others, till the spectators
could not believe their senses.'" Morphy himself made the
statement that he had never forgotten a game that he had
played after his chess powers were mature. Blackburne like-
wise has a tenacious memory for his past games. In 1899 ^^
recalled any number of games which he had played in 1862,
pointing out with the utmost precision the flaw or the beauty
in each.*
In regard to the recapitulation of games it should be noted
that the player is recalling a number of known situations each
the result of a well known series of moves, and that each game
as a whole is constituted of, and characterized by, a number of
situations joined together by distinctive features which may
consist either of individual moves or of combinations of them.
The case is similar to that of a remembered conversation; the
one who recalls it does not recall each word separately but
rather the meaning of each remark and its connection with what
preceded or followed.
Other Feats of Memory. Blackburne, without sight of the
board, is able to give the moves known as the knight's tour,
which consists in placing the knight on any designated square
and making it strike in succession every square on the board.
This is by no means an easy task with the board in sight, a
fact of which any one may easily convince himself. Aside
from chess Pillsbury performed some rather difficult memory
feats. If any portion of a deck of playing cards was called off
' Edge, F. M. : Exploits and Triumphs in Europe of Paul Morphy,
N. Y., 1859. p. 164.
"^ Edge : op. cit., p. 187.
^ Edge : op. cit., p. 187.
* Graham, P. Anderson: Mr. Blackburne's Games at Chess. I,ondon,
1899. p. 207.
THE PSYCHOLOGY OF CHBSS. 28 1
to him, he was able to name the cards remaining in the deck.
On one occasion, after playing blindfold games for two and one
half hours, during the intermission, a list of thirty words, num-
bered from one to thirty, was read to him. He memorized the
words in groups of five taking ten minutes in which to complete
the task. Then he was able to give the word corresponding
to any given number or the number corresponding to any given
word and to repeat the whole list either forward or backward. '
He made use, of course, of some mnemonic device and the case
is interesting only as showing what can be accomplished in that
way.
Announcement of Mate in Advance. The announcement of
mate several moves ahead means, in case it is not merely a re-
membered position, that the player has looked ahead of the
actual play and is able to say the precise number of moves
necessary to bring about the end of the game. It is a com-
mon thing for players of the first rank to announce mate five
or six moves in advance and their combinations in the middle
game often reach beyond that number. Blackbume, in one of
his blindfold performances, after the twentieth move, announced
mate in six moves more and then called off seven variations
which exhausted the position. *
Marshall, in London, announced mate in eight moves and pro-
ceeded to accomplish it in spite of all his opponent could do to
prevent it. The longest mate ever announced in blindfold play
was one by Blackbume in sixteen moves. ^
In some cases planning ahead, as was suggested above, is a
simple act of memory. The player may merely recognize the
situation as one previously seen and may remember the indi-
vidual moves which followed and the result ; or he may pass
directly from the first term, the situation, to the last term, the
result, recalling at the same time the number of moves, but
not the moves themselves. Where the player has never reached
mate from the given situation, but is able to foresee it, he must
possess the ability to work through mentally all the situations
which come between the one given and the final one, which
calls for good powers of analysis and memory as well as ex-
perience.
Blindfold Play. The feats which have caused most wonder
and admiration are those of blindfold players. Playing with-
out sight of the board is now one of the most common forms
of exhibition chess, and it has been said that almost every
good amateur can play at least one game sans voir.
Paul Morphy, during his triumphal tour of Europe, created
1 British Chess Magazine, Vol. XX, p. 399.
^ Graham : op. cii., p. 209. ' Graham : op. cit., p. 211.
282 CLBVELAND :
great astonishment by playing eight simultaneous games blind-
folded. It is said by competent judges that some of his most
brilliant games were those played in this way. Zukertort
played twelve and fourteen games very frequently, but often
remarked that the two additional ones made it much more diffi-
cult. Blackburne is one of the strongest of the blindfold
players, but the greatest of all thus far in this line was the
American, Pillsbury, who played as many as twenty-two
blindfold games simultaneously, winning most of them. With
him the number of games seemed to be limited only by the
length of time required to complete them and by his physical
endurance.^
Pillsbury, in an exhibition given at Toledo, Ohio, played
twelve games of chess and four of checkers without sight of
the boards, and at the same time played duplicate whist.
Such are the feats of blindfold play by the masters. What
shall we say in explanation of them ? Memory certainly plays
a very important r61e, but it may be chiefly of the short time
variety, that is, the player holds the moves in mind only dur-
ing the progress of the play and forgets them immediately
afterward, much as the student or the lawyer does the facts
he has crammed for a particular occasion. Pillsbury, in an
article, said that he had to think rather hard to recall the
opening in any given game of a series five minutes after the
contest ended.^ Morphy, on the other hand, seemed to retain
his games permanently.
A blindfold player, playing a single game, must have in mind
at every stage of the game the position of every piece on the
board, and he must have some way of knowing or of calcu-
lating the relation of each piece to every other, facts which are
not necessarily involved in mere place memory. His knowl-
edge of these positions and relations must be sufficiently clear
to enable him to form combinations for attack and defense. In
playing eight, ten, twelve, sixteen or twenty games simultan-
eously without sight of the boards, the task is, of course,
immensely more difficult, since the player has not only to re-
member a proportionally greater number of moves (or positions)
but has also to remember each move or set of moves in relation
to the particular game in which it is made.
The blindfold player, playing several games simultaneously,
usually employes devices to make his task less difficult. Pills-
1 The physical endurance required for play in such contests is some-
thing little realized by the uninitiated. Morphy, at Paris, played for
ten consecutive hours without eating or drinking anything. Paulsen,
who played as many as ten games blindfold, played twelve consecu-
tive hours on one occasion with no refreshments of any kind except a
little lemonade.
2 Pillsbury: The Chess Player's Mind. Independent, Vol. LII, p. 1104.
THB PSYCHOLOGY OF CHESS. 283
bury grouped his games and used the same opening in all
games Of a group. For instance, in playing sixteen games he
grouped them as follows: group one contained boards i, 5, 9,
13; group two, boards 2, 6, 10, 14; group three, boards
3, 7, II, 15; and group four, boards 4, 8, 12, 16. It
will be noticed that two groups contain odd and two
even numbers, and that there is a difference of four between
any number of a group and the one next to it — i, 5, 9, etc.
The blindfold player usually has first move on all boards and
can generally force his opponent into his system. If not, he
may regroup the boards according as they do or do not fall
into his system of play, or he may simply make a mental note
of the boards on which eccentric replies to his opening moves
have been made. Obviously, so long as the games in each
group proceed without variation from the usual moves and re-
plies, there is little chance for confusion, but very soon the
game begins to vary. By the time this happens, however, the
player has noted some distinctive feature by means of which to
recall any game. Pillsbury put it in this way: "By the time
twenty moves haye been made there has been some clearing of
the board and a definite objective has been developed. When
I turn to the new board I say — Ah! number nine. This is the
board on which we have exchanged queens ; and the whole
play comes back to me."'
In other words, the variation itself, because it involves some
distinctive feature, is the cue for the recall of all the moves
that have preceded it and those which grew out of it. It will
help us to understand this if we recall the fact that chess is, as
Binet puts it, a contest between ideas, and that each move is
but a part of a series all working together toward the same
end, or in other words, each move is remembered because it is
a necessary part of a plan.**
He points out further that those who retain in mind a situa-
tion or a series of moves have the faculty of giving to the
situation or the series a precise significance. A person ignorant
of chess could not, of course, do this and so would be unable
to hold such things in memory. Mr. R. I<. Newman also, ex-
perimenting upon checker players in the laboratory of the
University of Indiana, found that a long series of moves in
checkers, made in the presence of his subjects, was remem-
bered only after some form of grouping was employed and that
the series was learned quickest by those who understood the
purpose of the different moves.' The purpose caused the indi-
vidual moves to hang together, so to speak.
* Pillsbury: op. dt. ^ Binet: op. cit., p. 264, p. 274.
2 Mr. Newman's article has not been published, but the manuscript
was placed at the writer's disposal through the kindness of Prof. E.
H. I/indley of the University of Indiana.
284 CLEVB1.AND :
Binet ^ concludes with M. Goetz that the memory employed
in games without sight is above all a memory of reason and
calculation, or more concretely, that one does not remember
that he has moved his king at such and such a time, but re-
members a certain project of offence or defense in accord-
ance with which he has moved his king. He qualifies this in
part, however, by the statement that sometimes individual
moves which make a deep impression on the mind and awaken
astonishment are recalled individually. One retains a game of
chess as he does a printed line or paragraph ; the meaning and
not the individual letters or words are what is retained.
Both Taine and Binet have studied the question of the vis-
ual representation of the board by the blindfold player. Taine
concluded that such a player sees the board and the pieces on
it as in an "interior mirror." He quotes an unnamed Ameri-
can to the effect that at the beginning of a game he sees clearly
before his mental eye, the board and the exact appearance of
each piece, and that after the announcement of each move he
sees the pieces in the new arrangement, in exactly the same
way.** The method of Dr. Tarrasch is thus described by Binet :'
At the start he represents the board in its original condition.
When he makes the first move he sees the board thus modified
and keeps the new impression in his mind's eye, and so on
through the game, his mental picture changing with each move.
Binet's correspondents, with one exception, answered that they
used visual memory in playing without sight. He concludes
from their answers that there are two forms of visual memory
u.sed in blindfold chess, which he designates as concrete visual
memory and abstract visual memory. Players who make use
of the former see the forms and the colors of the pieces and
squares on the board exactly as they are. Abstract visual
memory is described as follows : Most of the players see the
board mentally. The mental image is localized before the
player, but he apperceives at one time only the part of the board
where the interesting features of the battle are taking place.
The board does not ordinarily have a particular form. It is an
abstract board composed of sixty-four squares. Very often the
edges of the board are not seen. For some players certain
diagonals, having particular importance for the game, are seen
more clearly than others. Often the colors of the squares are
not clearly seen, but become grayish, one color being a little
brighter than the other. The form seems to be the element
which is the most difScult to efface from the mental image.
1 Binet : op. cit., pp. 270 it.
^ Taine : On Intelligence. New York, 1899. pp, 38, 39.
' Binet: op. cit., pp. 276 ff.
THE PSYCHOLOGY OF CHBSS. 285
What Binet calls the geometrical notion often takes the place
of color. Binet' s correspondents are unanimous in the opinion
that they represent to themselves the positions of the pieces
and their spatial relations and that no combination would be
possible without such representation. Charcot gives the name
"geometrical visual memory" to that kind of visual memory
which simply conserves the positions and the movements of
the pieces.*
In agreement with Binet we may say that this kind of mem-
ory is the work of abstraction and results from the direction
which the player gives to his attention. Form and color are
neglected because they are of little importance. This abstrac-
tion, as Binet points out, is comparable to that in daily life
where we gradually eliminate details and give attention only to
essentials.
It seems evident from Binet's study, and from the statements
of many chess players, that visual imagery in varying degrees
of clearness from the most perfect representation to the most
shadowy, is a very important factor in playing chess without
sight, and that most players make use of it ; but there is, on
the other hand, data to warrant us in saying that it is not an
absolutely indispensable factor. In other words, it is possible
that a blindfold game could be carried on by a person entirely
devoid of visual imagery. M. Goetz, in his paper published in
Binet's book, says that visualization is almost entirely absent
in his blindfold play and that his performance depends only on
"reason and calculation." " For example, he knows from ex-
perience that a pawn on the king's fourth attacks one on his
opponent's queen's fourth, and that a knight or a bishop on a
certain square controls certain other squares ; and this knowl-
edge may be retained in verbal terms. Pillsbury, the greatest
of all blindfold players, also asserted that he had little or no
visual imagery and that he remembers each board and the posi-
tions on it not as a picture, but as a record.
Even in my own limited experience in blindfold play, I have
found that visualization is an incidental and by no means es-
sential factor. In my own case, in the beginning, visual images
were entirely lacking, a little later they were present at times
as the result of a conscious effort to call them up, and now
when they are present they are so only in the most indefinite
form. For instance, I have no mental picture of the board
aside from its general outline, and the forms and colors of the
pieces are never present, except when I have paid particular
attention to them for experimental purposes. In the begin-
ning, localization of the play was very indefinite and a replay-
1 Binet : op. cii., p. 311. * Binet : op. cit., pp. 340-351.
JOURNAI, — 2
286 CLEVKI,AND :
ing of the games with the board furnished many surprises both
in this regard and in regard to the relative positions and dis-
tances of the pieces. At the present time the movements of
the pieces and the localization of the play are fairly definite.
I seem to feel the movements of the pieces, especially my own,
as if I were actually moving them. Particular positions in-
volving two or three pieces are sometimes seen in so far as the
relative positions of the pieces are concerned. Normally I am
a fair visualizer, but in blindfold chess my thinking seems to
be largely of other sorts, and especially in verbal terms. When
not engaged in actual play I frequently call up a situation with
a fair degree of clearness, but when playing, verbal imagery is
the most prominent in consciousness. For example, my op-
ponent announces knight to the king's fifth. Ordinarily I do
not picture the resulting position, but calculate the radius of
action of the piece thus : knight on king's fifth attacks queen's
seventh, bishop's seventh, etc. If it is advanced to queen's
seventh it checks king at knight's first, etc., etc. It would
seem that there is a closer, association between the series of
verbal images than between the visual images or the series
composed of both verbal and visual images. My experiment-
ing has not gone far enough, however, to furnish very much
that is definite in regard to this aspect of the question. With-
out visual imagery the blindfold player would have to rely on
word, letter and number symbols, and would have, it would
seem, a much more difficult task than the player with highly
developed power of visualization. In actual play, verbal
memory plays an important part even for strong visualizers,
for it is often by this means that they recall the actual moves
that have been made when they are in doubt as to the position
of any piece. My companion in the attempts at blindfold play
made considerable use of visual imagery of Binet's abstract
type, but used other sorts to a certain extent. I am inclined
to believe that with increasing experience both of us would
have made more use of verbal and other symbols.*
In order to determine whether it would be possible to play
chess with no visual imagery whatever, the following experi-
ment was tried. Games were played without the use of either
board or chessmen. The records were kept in the German
notation, but in such a way that each player could tell the
number and the location of the pieces on either side. The
moves and replies were thought out as far as possible with the
aid of this record and in terms of the symbols used. For in-
stance. Pas attacks any pawn or piece on b 6 ; Kt c 3 attacks
^ It may be conjectured that the necessary concentration of attention
on the relations of the pieces rather than on the pieces themselves is
partly responsible for the incomplete development of visual imagery.
THE PSYCHOLOGY OP CHBSS. 287
b I, a 2, a 4, b 5, d 5, e 4, e 2, d I, etc. It was thus possible
to calculate the relative positions of the different pieces and to
attack and to defend any given position. The experiment was
not long continued and visual imagery was never wholly ab-
sent, especially where attempts were made to form combina-
tions. Nevertheless, I am convinced that it would be possible
for a person to learn to play chess by means of verbal and
number symbols alone. The task would be a very long and
difficult one, but by no means impossible.
The Relation of Chess Skill to General Mental Ability. If
chess is perhaps a tolerable index of temperament and charac-
ter, is skill in chess also a reliable index of mental power in
general? The reply must be qualified. Many able men are
good chess players, but on the other hand there are those who
live for chess, who think, talk, and dream chess, who confirm
Edgar Allen Poe's observation that the best chess player may
be only the best player at chess ; but this number is small com-
pared to the vast majority who indulge in it only as a pastime.
Even among chess masters are to be found many who have
displayed considerable ability in other lines. Dr. Emanuel
Lasker, the present world's champion at chess, has taken his
doctorate in mathematics. Tschigorin is a Russian govern-
ment employee, Maroczy is a professor of physics and mathe-
matics at a Budapest college, Tarrasch is a German physician,
Anderson, at one time champion of the world, was a professor
of mathematics, and Staunton, another world's champion and
one of the best known of the older chess writers, is well known
also as a writer and as an editor of the classics. Rousseau,
Voltaire, Napoleon, and John Stuart Mill are said to have been
strong players, and the historian Buckle an excellent one.
The list might be increased almost indefinitely, but enough has
been said to indicate that skillful chess players represent all
walks of life, and that skill at chess is not incompatible with
success in other lines. The chess player is usually something
more than a mere player of chess. At the same time the cases
of idiots savants in various forms of mental activity, and among
others in chess playing, prevent the inference that skill in
chess is a universally valid index of high mental endowment.*
5. Special Psychology op Chess.
Forms of Mental Activity Required. We have now followed
sufficiently, perhaps, the general aspects of the game, and can
turn with advantage to its more intimate psychology. The
aim of each player is, as we have said, to checkmate his oppo-
1 See in the appendix to this study an account of a fair chess player
of otherwise feeble intelligence.
288 CI<SVEIvAND :
nent, that is, to bring his own pieces into such a position that
the opposing king could inevitably be taken at the next move.
Each player must therefore carry out a scheme of attack, over-
coming obstacles and preventing the blocking.of his own plans,
and at the same time guard himself from counter attack. The
game in its most important portion presents in essence a succes-
sion of situations each of which calls for special examination,
with reference both to its present and its future import, and the
selection or invention of an appropriate line of action. The
player asks himself continually, in effect, at least, what is this
present situation and what ought I to do to meet it? The
game throughout may be regarded as a series of reasoned in-
ferences, expressed by moves upon the board. The present
section will be devoted to an exposition of the logical and psy-
chological relations in question.
The Stages of the Game and Their Logical Types, The game
of chess proper is divided into three fairly well defined parts
called the opening, middle, and end games. There are openings
without number but all have been the subject of analysis for so
long that one can obtain from the numerous books on the sub-
ject information limited only by his capacity to retain it. The
competent player knows at least the chief openings and enough
of their theory to meet any unexpected variation from the
usual moves and replies.
The end game, in which the forces on either side are greatly
reduced, has also received careful study at the hands of expert
analysts, so that one may. learn from the books to recognize
certain situations and to know their possibilities. Geometrical
figures have often been employed to show the possibilities of
situations.
In the middle game, however, the player may no longer
rely on definite directions, but is entirely dependent on his
knowledge of general principles and his past experience. The
former will be of service especially to the young player, but,
owing to the infinite number of possibilities which may develop
out of the different situations, experience in actual play is in-
dispensable. Here the player must exercise all his ingenuity,
must give rein to his creative imagination, and must follow
out as far as he is able the effects of the different moves which
suggest themselves. The chess player's skill is measured in
terms of his ability to do all this successfully.
Opening and End Games. In the opening game and in the
end game the logical type of reasoning is usually that of the
categorical syllogism. In case of a typical opening it may be
formulated as follows:
In all cases of the Evan's Gambit, pawn to the queen's
knight's fourth is the fourth move.
THS PSYCHOLOGY OF CHBSS. 289
This move is to be the fourth in an Evan's Gambit.
Therefore, this move should be pawn to the queen's knight's
fourth.
Similarly in the end game the situation which develops re-
calls the procedure to be followed. If White, for example, has
a king and a rook against Black's king, he must drive the
latter to the edge of the board, hold him there with his king
and mate with his rook. White's procedure may again be
reduced to the type of the categorical syllogism.
All cases of king and rook against king are to be met by
driving the latter to the edge of the board, etc.
This is a case of king and rook against king.
Therefore, this is a case to be met by driving the king to the
edge of the board, etc.
All habitual actions may be reduced to this type and Pro-
fessor Charles Pierce has remarked the same about all reflex
actions.
The Middle Game. In the middle game, where general rules
are only partially applicable, the logical procedure is mixed and
will differ somewhat according to the grade of the player. In
what follows immediately we shall assume the player's condition
to be that of a not very skillful amateur; of the professional's
condition we shall speak later. So far as general rules apply
to the middle game, the play will be of the deductive type
which we have just illustrated, but in the vast majority of
cases it will be more complicated. The situation is not of the
known sort that invites application of general rules, but of an
unknown sort in which the essential features (or true meaning)
must be disentangled from a mass of obscuring details, and
when disentangled must be met by a move or a line of play es-
pecially selected, or invented, for the purpose. The logical
type is not now simply deductive, but really a series of logical
steps resembling the sort of scientific procedure which Jevons,
for example, calls the "Combined or Complex Method."^ An
hypothesis is first formed, deductive inferences drawn from it,
and these tested by experiment. The player finds before him
a situation created by the last move of his opponent. His
study of the situation gives it a certain character in his mind
equivalent to the formation of an hypothesis with regard to it.
He then reasons: This is a situation of such and such a sort
and therefore to be met by such a move in reply. The move
in reply is then tried in imagination. If it seems successful it
is accepted and actually made; if it is seen to be unsatisfactory,
it is rejected and a better one sought for the same purpose, or
1 Jevons : Lessons in Logic. New Ed. London and New York, 1905.
p. 258.
290 CtEVBLAND :
what is more likely, the hypothesis itself (the conceived charac-
ter of the situation) has been changed by the evident unfitness
of the move imagined.
Skill is shown in the opening and end games by the readi-
ness with which the player recognizes the common situation
and draws from memory the appropriate response. Skill in the
middle game is shown by the readiness with which he recog-
nizes the essential features of a new situation, and, in his inner
experimentation, hits upon a move that fits the case, i. e.,
proves by its appropriateness that his diagnosis of the situation
was correct.
This is the condition of the commonplace player. The case
of a perfect player, one with chess omniscience, whose analysis
was perfect, who could see the game to the end at any stage of
it, would be quite different. Having a perfect plan of pro-
cedure for every case, he would play throughout very much as
the amateur plays the opening and the end games. Excellence
in play ranges upward from the condition of the amateur toward
that of the perfect player. To the chess master many of the
situations that arise in the middle game are already familiar
and the best means of meeting them known. Others will be
unknown; and then the crucial point of his opponent's attack
must be discovered and an appropriate response devised. His
play is for the moment of essentially the same type as that of
the amateur, except that he is both by nature and experience
much more prompt in discovering the essential feature of the
attack and much more resourceful in finding means of repel-
ling it.
Set us, however, return to the logical type employed by the
commonplace player. The type followed in the opening and
end games would correspond closely to the typical logical pro-
cedure as described by James.'
The type followed in the middle game differs from the formal
sketch of James which has in view reasoning of the deductive
type. Here the essential characteristic of the situation, even
when discovered, does not suggest any well known group of
similar cases to which it may be referred and for which a defi-
nite mode of procedure has already been worked out. The es-
sential characteristic can at the most suggest only a very gen-
eral kind of procedure; it gives no inkling of just what should
be done. The player knows that he must sacrifice the threat-
ened piece, or withdraw it, or intercept the attack, or make a
counter attack, but which of these is best must be thought out
for each situation. His usual method is to try in imagination
one move after another until he finds one that seems superior
^ James : Principles of Psychology, N. Y., 1899, Vol. II, pp. 330 ff.
THE PSYCHOLOGY OF CHBSS. 29 1
to all the rest. And often it is only during this experimental
process that the full signification of the situation dawns upon
him.
Such reasoning is concrete and practical, not put into words,
or only partially so, and allied to the reasoning of animals and
children.^
But, as Morgan well shows, the logical reasoning of man is
largely dependent on the need of communication and the use
of language; '^ a chess game played is reasoned in particulars ;
the same game explained and defended to a companion would
be cast in verbal and syllogistic form.
Psychological Restatement of the Logical Types. This last re-
mark touches upon an essential point to which we must give
yet a little further attention, namely, the difierence between the
logical types of reasoning and the actual psychological pro-
cesses which they symbolize. All processes of reasoning are,
as psychological facts, sequences of mental states due to shift-
ing of the focal point of attention and to processes of association
dependent thereon. In the deductive portions of the game —
the opening or end game, where the play is guided wholly by
rule — the process is one of serial association running oflF under
the general influence of the conception of the opening (or end
game) which remains in the background of consciousness.
Each move suggests the next in fixed sequence, as one might
say the alphabet, having in the background of his conscious-
ness the desire to say it.
For the middle game let us take a concrete example. Let
us say that it is Black's turn to move. He glances at the
board and notices the queen and knight of his opponent in
position to develop a double check upon his king. Association,
under the guidance of his general knowledge of the purpose
of the game, freely suggests the consequences, if he cannot in
some way interfere. Attention then shifts to the response to
be made and association again coming in suggests the readiest
means of defense. In other words, the situation, regarded
from the point of view of defense and held in the focus of at-
tention, recalls by association a number of possible moves.
These associations, following, of course, the readiest lines of
habit, are not by any means at random, but operate strictly
within the limits imposed by Black's knowledge of the general
rules of play and his present intention. Each of the moves
suggested is itself brought to the focus of attention, is tried in
imagination, probably by incipient movements of eye or hand,
^ It is what Romanes calls reasoning in particulars. Romanes :
Mental Bvolution in Animals. N. Y., 1900. p. 337.
2 Morgan : Introduction to Comparative Psychology. Iiondon and
N. Y., 1902. pp. 293 ff.
292 CLEVELAND :
and accepted or rejected as the case may be. If accepted, it is
put into execution in the same manner as other voluntary
movements.
The mental action of the player in such a situation is analo-
gous to that of the inventor. A half finished machine stands
before him ; his problem is clear ; he must cause such and such
movement in such and such parts in order to bring about a de-
sired result. He runs over in his mind the varieties of pulleys,
cranks, gearings, cams and the like with which he is familiar,
and finally selects one or the other as the most likely to ac-
complish what he wishes. A high grade of skill as an inventor
or as a player of chess involves the utmost readiness in seeing
just what needs to be done and in discovering the means of
doing it. Experience helps immensely in both of these direc-
tions ; and it brings many cases under fixed rules so that they
are dealt with by simple associations and correspondingly re-
duces the number of cases that must be treated as singular and
without rule, and greatly enriches the fund of expedients that
may be tried in such singular cases. When the case is so un-
familiar that experience suggests nothing, the reasoner is re-
duced to simple blind fumbling, on a level with that of the
brutes, and rational procedure reduces to the "method of trial
and error. ' ' The situation arouses an impulse to do something;
there is a blundering attack; efforts that lead to unpleasant
consequences are rejected; those with pleasant consequences
are repeated. Man's more complex mechanism of apperception,
his wider range of associations, and his power of imaginative
action all combine to reduce the cases where blind fumbling is
necessary, but when these powers are of no avail there is but
one method, and that is the method of lucky hits.
II. The Psychology of the Learning of the Game.
I. General Description of the Learning Processes in Chess. ^
In the preceding sections have been set forth what I con-
ceive to be the general outlines of the mental activities involved
in chess playing. It is popularly believed that chess is a very
hard game to learn, that it is difficult for every one and im-
possible for many. To a certain extent this is true. Chess is
a difficult game, but it is so because it requires a peculiar mental
equipment, rather than because it calls for one of an especially
high order. First and foremost is required a liking for chess.
The man who finds it uninteresting may as well give it up at
once. Next it requires powers of sustained attention and an
1 My sources of information here are my own introspective notes
while learning to play, and those of four assistants, together with the
replies of my correspondents.
THE PSYCHOLOGY OF CHBSS. 293
excellent memory;' and based on these, considerable powers
of analysis, and visual imagination, or its equivalent in some
other sense department.
Increase in skill means increase in the knowledge of chess
situations and how to meet them ; or, in more psychological
terms, increasing "meaning" in certain arrangements of the
pieces," and increased facility of association between these
meaningful arrangements and certain other arrangements
(moves to be made) imaginatively constructed ; or, in still
other terms, more adequate apperception of the situations and
richer and better organized associations connected therewith.
These organized apperceptions and associations insure truer
and prompter apprehension of the difficulty to be met and
better and prompter selection of the means to meet it. Skill
is largely, though not wholly, in proportion to knowledge, and
knowledge in proportion to experience.'
The player's progress may be divided roughly and for pur-
poses of description into five stages. ( i ) The first step is to
learn the names and movements of the pieces. The former is
easily done, but the latter requires a trifle of practice before
the pieces can be readily used in play. This is especially true
in the case of the knight.* For successful play the moves
must, in the end, become automatic, and this automatism is
not reached, as the game is usually learned, in the first stage
itself It depends for its perfecting on the practice obtained in
succeeding ones. This probably is the natural method in all
learning, the greater interest of the advanced stages floating
the learner over the drudgery necessary for complete perfection
of the automatisms of the earlier. When the moves have be-
come automatic the men are no longer pieces of wood, jade or
1 These last may not seem absolutely essential in view of the case to
be described in the appendix, bnt even from that case I shall hope to
show that this statement is justified.
2 Stout : Manual of Psychology. N. Y., 1899. pp. 84 ff.
' I say "not wholly in proportion to knowledge," because skill rep-
resents only that part of knowledge that can be readily and effectively
applied. Our general problem in this section is, therefore, to describe,
as far as we are able, the way in which experience becomes transmuted
into skill. Our immediate concern is with chess skill, but if we are
successful in our study of that, we shall be justified in certain infer-
ences with regard to many other sorts of learning which, like it, are
matters of mental as opposed to purely physical training.
* Knowledge of checkers is at first a source of many interferences.
The player is tempted to move his pawns diagonally, has a tendency
to keep his pieces bunched so that his opponent cannot "jump" them,
is on the lookout for vacant squares on which to plant his pieces, and
has a tendency to clear the board as soon as possible. He also finds
it difficult to remember that the pieces can retreat after having been
once advanced.
294 CtEVBlAND :
ivory, — static things — but forces capable of being exerted in
definite directions.
(2) The second stage may be characterized as the stage of
individual moves of ofEence and defense during which the be-
ginner plays with no definite aim other than to capture his
opponent's pieces. Even this he blunders about, often over-
looking for several moves a chance to capture a man that has
been left en prise. My notes contain many entries showing
two bishops, both unprotected, left facing each other for several
moves, or a queen moved within range of a bishop or a knight.
The player is able to attack one of his opponent's pieces and
is able ordinarily to defend himself against direct attacks.
Whichever he attempts to do he must give his whole attention
to it, and even with this extreme of concentration he is able to
see only the immediate consequences of the move. In general,
however, his lack of conception of the aim of the game, causes
him to play at random. His play lacks unity and the pieces
are moved hither and thither, unsupported and unsupporting ;
he has no conception of the game as a well planned sequence.
Nevertheless he has hovering in the background of conscious-
ness some idea of the ultimate object of the play, the hemming
in of the adverse king, and is influenced somewhat by it.
(3) The beginner is soon able to tell at a glance what any
single piece can do, but no one piece, not even the queen, is
very strong unless supported by others. Hence the task in the
third stage of the beginner's progress becomes that of learning
the strength, not of individual pieces, but of pieces in relation
to each other. He has to learn the value of groups and the
value of individual pieces as parts of particular groups. There
are times when a bishop or a knight or even a pawn may be so
situated that its direct infliuence is greater than that of a rook
or a queen. Many of the most fascinating of the recorded
games are those in which one player has actually given away
one or more of his pieces, often his queen, in order to gain the
advantage of the relative positions resulting from the move-
ment of the pieces involved.
About the time the beginner has passed beyond the first two
stages of his learning and during the third, the idea of check-
ing becomes the dominating one with him and his efforts tend
to centre upon that exclusively. This, of course, leads to pre-
mature attacks which usually result disastrously to the ag-
gressor. He is also prone to fix his attention on his own plans
and most likely on the particular part he is about to execute at
the moment, to the neglect of all others. He suffers from in-
ability to take in a number of details at the same time. They
have no meaning except as details, and if he concentrates on
one, others must, by that very fact, be neglected. He has
THE PSYCHOLOGY OF CHBSS. 295
ittle idea of the importance of developing his pieces, /. e.,
making them available for future offence and defense, and of
the value of position. The attack of his opponent compels
some defensive play, however, and no defense can, of course,
be made without the co-operation of at least two pieces, so
that he soon learns something of the use of pieces in combina-
tion. He learns, for example, that often a piece may defend
another and at the same time attack one of his opponent's
pieces, that in some cases where two pieces are attacked simul-
taneously one may be withdrawn and so placed as to protect
the other, and that a counter attack is often the best defense.
He has made considerable progress in this stage when he is
able to give attention to the plans of his opponent beyond
those that are immediately connected with his own, though in
this particular, temperament plays a large r&le. That this is
the usual experience, however, is testified by the fact that after
a player is able to form a definite plan of his own involving
some use of combination, he is often surprised by checkmate
when he is within a single move of checkmating his opponent.
He is unable to carry out his own plans and at the same time
to give attention to anything else ; he is particularly weak in
defense.
In general we may say that the beginner at this stage is not
able to play in proportion to his knowledge. He recognizes
his errors when they are pointed out to him, but he is unable
to avoid them. My records show many familiar blunders oc-
curring over and over again. The beginner's material of
knowledge is not organized and therefore not available in any
situation except the most simple.
(4) The player has entered upon the fourth stage when he
begins consciously to plan the systematic development of his
pieces. This necessarily involves some knowledge of the value
of position, which knowledge we may call judgment of position.
These judgments are generalizations and are the result of the
player's own experience, or have come to him in the form of
general principles from the experience of others. However
they may come to the player their possession is absolutely es-
sential to further progress. Now the player no longer has to
puzzle himself by attempting to consider all the possibilities of
the situation, a thing he is utterly unable to do, but he applies
his principle. His principles, especially those he has formu-
lated for himself, are usually only partially true and have to
undergo constant modification as his knowledge and experience
increase. He knows now a number of definite situations and
his plans radiate from these and are more far reaching. He is
also in a position to give more attention to the moves and, in-
deed, to the general plans of his opponent. This is a consid-
296 CLEVBLAND :
erable advance, for it means that the player's mental horizon
has been extended very much and that he is able to disregard
the non-essentials to a greater extent than before. Given posi-
tions assume more and more importance and one of the great
marks of improvement is the development of "position sense."*
(5) As we have already pointed out, "position sense" is a
result of experience, and as such is the product, we may almost
say the culmination, of one's whole chess development. Never-
theless, a fairly good knowledge of the value of different posi-
tions marks such an advance over the player who is in what
we have called the fourth stage that it may be taken as the
fifth in the player's course of development.
The stages mentioned above are somewhat arbitrary, and
may not be followed exactly in individual cases, but they will
at least give some indication of the course of the player's de-
velopment, which may be summarized in brief as follows :
First the names and moves of the pieces are learned. Then
comes the period of blunders, of indefinite play, of premature
attacks, and of concentration on single moves, particular situa-
tions or, at best, on a plan imperfectly worked out. Later, one
is able to see farther ahead, to foresee results more accurately,
and to give some attention to the plans of his opponent. At
the same time some typical forms of attack and defense and
some general principles, or supposed principles are being
learned, together with some knowledge of position. Along
with all of this, though appearing consciously much later, goes
an ever increasing power of analysis and improvement in
"position sense."
Some of the most common blunders or oversights of these
early stages are leaving pieces en prise, i. e. , unprotected and
in a position to be captured on the next move of the opponent ;
allowing two pieces to be attacked simultaneously by one
piece ; removing a guarding piece, resulting in the loss of the
guarded one ; allowing a piece to be "pinned," i. e., leaving it
in such a situation that either it cannot, under the rules, be
moved at all, or only with loss of an important piece. Errors
of a more general nature are overlooking the bearing and force
of distant and far-reaching pieces, errors in pawn play, not
correlating the pawns and pieces, blocking the radius of action
of the men, forgetting the purpose which prompted the placing
of a piece in a certain position and a consequent loss of time
in replacing it, or a disorganization of forces, and finally, faulty
combinations and unsound sacrifices. Many blunders arise at
all stages of skill from haste, impatience, and impulsiveness,
but they are especially numerous with beginners.
1 Vide, p. 277.
THE PSYCHOLOGY OF CHESS. 297
2. Discussion of the Learning Process.
We have now given an account of the stages of learning ; it
remains to speak more particularly of the psychology of the
learning process. Our problem is to explain the development
of a beginner, who knows merely the names of the pieces and
their powers, into the skillful player who makes use of these
simple elements in intricate and purposeful combinations. We
have to do with the growth of skill in strictly mental opera-
tions within the limited field of chess play.'
Obviously, memory is the sine qua non of learning, but
although of prime importance it is only one of the factors
involved. It must be such a memory as leads to the organiza-
tion of the mental materials rather than to their mere retention.
One could not be far wrong in saying that mental skill is in
direct proportion to the degree of this organization. How or-
ganization can best be brought abotjt is still an open question,
and indeed its answer would involve the entire psychology of
pedagogy. Its ultimate nature we do not know. To a great
extent the material organizes itself, i. e., the organization is
physiological and a matter of growth. This fact was clearly
pointed out by Dr. Burnham, who holds in his study on "Re-
troactive Amnesia" ^ that impressions require a certain time in
which to fix themselves. The growth process, fixing the im-
pression and strengthening the association tracts, is an indis-
pensable factor in learning. A multiplicity of impressions
might be made to follow so closely on one another that none of
them could become fixed. In that case, of course, nothing
would be learned.
1 Numerous studies have been made on memory, attention, and
other complex mental processes and a considerable number on learn-
ing, but these latter have been concerned chiefly with motor training.
Bryan and Barter's study on the learning of the telegraphic language
among the earlier studies, is the nearest approach to the present one,
but it deals more especially with a sort of learning which is of a
mixed motor and sensory type, whereas the skill here in question is
almost wholly central. In that study learning on the sensory side
consisted in the formation of fixed associations between complex
sounds and the corresponding words; in our case the learning process
involves the formation of complex groups rather than that of fixed
associations of symbol and word. Nevertheless much of what Bryan
and Barter discovered in reference to this latter sort of learning is
strictly applicable to the form with which we are dealing, especially
their chief generalization, namely, that advance in skill depends upon
the formation of a "hierarchy of habits." Among the more recent
studies, that of Swift, on Beginning a Language, in the Garman Com-
memorative volume (Studies in Philosophy and Psychology by former
students of Charles Edward Garman, Boston, 1906) may be mentioned
as dealing like this with a form of mental skill.
2 Burnham: Retroactive Amnesia, Amer. Jour, of Psy.,\o\. XIV,
I903> pp. 382-396.
298 CLEVELAND :
Id this connection I may mention that the returns of my
correspondents also indicate that short periods of rest from
chess practice, varying with the individual from a few weeks to
several months, may cause a noticeable increase in skill. Re-
newed interest and consequent greater effort in beginning again
after an interval of no play may account for this in part, and it
may be also that in constant playing the details accumulate
faster than the mind can assimilate them, so that they confuse
rather than aid the player. This seems plausible when we re-
member the difficulty the beginner has in applying known
principles to a mass of details. Then, too, when the stress of
new impressions ceases, an opportunity is given to take an in-
ventory of the mental stock. This is not possible to any great
extent when new impressions are crowding in, and the atten-
tion is fully occupied with them. On the other hand, long
periods of inactivity have a very different effect. Players make
blunders in the openings, their combinations are not so far
reaching, and a greater effort is required. Every part of the
game that requires pure memory is affected and it is often
necessary to do cousciously what had previously been auto-
matic. This, however, has to do merely with the fixation of
separate impressions and of ideas with their associates, and our
problem is rather to account for the combination of these ele-
ments into larger and larger complexes. On the physiological
side little is known. The most that can be said is that in-
creasing complexity of nervous function parallels increasing
complexity of mental function. However that may be, our
explanation, for the present at least, must be sought on the
psychological side.
If we omit the very earliest stages in the chess player's de-
velopment, the first significant fact is the beginner's utter ina-
bility to use in actual play what little chess knowledge he
possesses. His blunders are recognized at once when they are
pointed out to him, but in spite of his resolution to avoid them,
he finds himself committing the same ones over and over again.
It seems that the more he tries to avoid them the more blunders
he makes. The intensity of his effort and the deep interest he
takes in the game precludes mere carelessness. His difficulties
are not due to lack of attention, but to the concentration of the
attention on one feature of the game to the neglect of all the
others. He sees this single thing and nothing more, because
it, of all the mass of impressions, has some meaning for him.
Were it possible to determine the span of one's chess attention
during the different periods of his progress in learning, it would
be possible to give objective evidence of the progressive fusion
of the different elements into larger and larger complexes. The
course of development would extend from the stage in which
THB PSYCHOWGY OF CHBSS. 299
the player is unable to see in their completeness even the im-
mediate consequences of a single move to that in which he is
able to take in at a glance the disposition of all the pieces on
the board. The building up of mental complexes in learning
chess and those involved in other sorts of learning are not essen-
tially different. There is a close analogy, for example, between
the chess player learning the moves and blundering through
his first few games, and the child learning to read, or the tele-
grapher learning to send and to receive messages.* The letter,
the telegraphic dot or dash, or the single move in chess is at
first the unit of perception. Later the word, a series of dots
and dashes, or the relation of two or more pieces to each other
becomes the unit. The child learns later, possibly, to compre-
hend at a glance the meaning of a phrase or a sentence; the
telegrapher to receive by phrases; the chess player to take in a
whole situation at a glance. Not only has the unit of perception
become larger and larger but it has become more and more
meaningful.
Perhaps the anology is closer still between the chess expert
and the mathematician who has merely to glance at a formula or
at its first two or three terms in order to recognize its full im-
port. Every situation in a game of chess which requires read-
justment of the player's plans is a problem for him, and the
quickness and the accuracy of his solution will depend upon
his ability to seize upon the salient and essential features and
to neglect those which have no meaning for that particular
situation. Obviously the mathematician's skill, when con-
fronted by a problem, will display itself in his ability to recog-
nize the fundamental nature of the problem. Lindley found
that an expert mathematician, among those who attempted to
solve his puzzle, recognized at a glance the mathematical prin-
ciple involved and solved it without difficulty.' He displayed
what corresponds to "position sense" in chess. The chess
player has this advantage. In any particular game he has
built up or helped to build up his own problem and has a men-
tal record of its progress. He has seen the possibilities ot
certain lines of play eliminated one by one and is thus able to
concentrate on the remaining ones.
The expert chess player is not required to analyze each
position as he comes to it, and, indeed, this would be impossible
to any great extent. His mind grasps the situation as a whole
and it has a definite meaning for him. He recognizes the
salient features only and deals with them, the details having
for the time being dropped out. He is in the position of the
general who has to know not that in one part of the field he
1 Bryan and Harter : op.dt. 'Lindley: op.cit., p. 470.
300 CLEVBLAND :
has a regiment of one thousand soldiers, divided into ten com-
panies of one hundred men each, but that he has a force there
sufficient to repel any ordinary attack. He has only to pay
attention to the regiments and their condition when au emer-
gency arises. The expert no longer deals with particular terms,
but with general terms or concepts. These general terms have
been built up step by step, their meaning changing with the
ever increasing knowledge of the player, and are often repre-
sented partially or symbolically by their initial moves or
general trend. More concretely, a player learns at first that a
certain move is a good one because it has certain definite ad-
vantages, and this enables him to plan a little further ahead.
I^ater he finds that this move has a great many other conse-
quences, and perhaps this in turn modifies a general principle
he may have based upon it, and this finally, may involve the
modification of several other principles and result in a still
more comprehensive principle embracing all of the others.
Details can be organized into larger groups in proportion as
they gather meaning as a group, but not before. The chess
player groups his pieces and they acquire a meaning analogous
to the potential meaning of the general term or the symbol in
abstract thinking. Progress in chess like progress in abstract
thinking of any other kind consists in the formation of an in-
creasing symbolism which permits the manipulation of larger
and larger complexes.
We are in the habit of speaking of the automatic in the
motor realm, meaning by it that certain movements or combina-
tions of movements are carried on without conscious guidance.
Is there such a thing as automatism in the realm of the purely
intellectual? It seems to me that this question is to be an-
swered in the affirmative. There is something in the purely
intellectual life corresponding to motor automatism, which is
shown in the ability to think symbolically or abstractly, and
thus to handle large masses of detail with a minimum of con-
scious effort. It involves the increasing ability to take in
during a single pulse of attention a larger and larger group of
details which means, of course, that the attention is no longer
needed for each one.
An apparent difference between motor and mental automa-
tisms, lies, however, in the fact that in the intellectual realm
increasing automatism seems to involve the dropping out of
details, while in the motor realm increasing automatism often
means a greater perfection of the details. Careful examination,
however, will probably show that in both details are dropped
from consciousness and that in both they are perfected in the
externalized outcome. The great feature common to both is
the releasing of the attention from the details. In the intel-
THB PSYCHOI.OGY OF CHESS. 30I
lectual sphere, as the processes become more and more com-
plex, they are carried on by systems of symbols which tend to
become more and more abstract or general. This is true of all
abstract thinking, including that involved in expert chess
playing. And, as in all other kinds of abstract thinking, it is
essential in chess that no matter how symbolic the thinking
may become the player must always have a thorough grasp of
the details of the game. In other words, he must not only be
able to construct his plans by the use of abstract symbols, but
he must be able to translate them into the concrete and to
carry them out move by move. This latter he does not neces-
sarily do in his thinking. From one whole situation he passes
directly to another whole situation. For instance in a definite
situation, the first move of a long series suggests not the next
move but the position after the whole series has been played.
In other words, the first term does not necessarily call up the
second one or the last, or some intermediate term, but the re-
sult of all the moves. This final result may be present to the
mind in the form of a visual image (a mental picture) or in
verbal terms. For example, the first few moves of the Evans
gambit already mentioned, may cause to arise in the mind of
one player a visual image of the position as it will appear after
a dozen moves have been made on each side, while in the case
of another player a verbal judgment of the strength or weak-
ness of the final position may take its place. To the latter
player this opening calls to mind a verbal judgment of the
final position based on past experience. The formulation of
principles of play, which become increasingly general, is another
expression of the increasing symbolism involved in learning to
play chess, but in this case in verbal instead of visual form.
The chess player's skill is measured largely in terms of his
ability to use larger and larger units of thought. He has
learned by means of many repetitions, a series of moves in
regular sequence, later, as has already been pointed out, the
first move or a given arrangement of the pieces on the board
represents for him the position as it will be several moves
further on. All the intermediate steps are for the moment
ignored, or, in other words, "a short circuit" has been estab-
lished and the association is between the first term and the last
or the total result instead of each term being revived by the
one immediately preceding it.
In trying to explain this from the physiological side two
alternatives present themselves. It may be that an entirely
new brain tract, connecting the first term with the last, has
been opened up. On the other hand it is just as conceivable
that the nervous impulse may travel along the same path in
all cases and that in the case of a "short circuit" only the first
JOtJRNAI,— 3
302 CI,BVBLAND :
and last terms rise into consciousness. Experiments on the
learning of nonsense syllables, showing that repetitions not
only strengthen the associative bonds between a syllable and
the one immediately following it, but also between more re-
mote ones,* seem to lend a certain support to the latter theory.
This is, however, all rather speculative since neurology is able
to tell us little or nothing about it. On the psychological side
the "short circuiting" process seems to mean something like
this. In the beginning the last term, the final result, is reached
after passage through all the terms of the series. Now, ordi-
narily, the series is of value, and therefore of interest, not for
itself, but for its result, so that little attention is given to the
intermediate links, but much to the getting through. The
whole strain of attention is forward. As a result of this the
image before the mind may be several steps in advance of
the one actually being executed, or, in well practiced series, it
may be the last step itself, or even the purpose for which the
series is gone through. The result is that there is a tendency
to the formation of immediate associations between the earlier
and later steps of the series. This suggests that conscious
effort plays an important part in the establishment of the
"short circuit." Bryan and Harter, in their study of tele-
graphic language, concluded that only by putting forth a
supreme effort could one rise above the plateau of moderate
attainment.^ Still it is by no means certain that the rise in
the curve would not take place in time if effort were maintained
at a moderate and uniform level. In that case the rise in the
curve from the plateau would mean the completion of the
growth processes under the guidance of ordinary selective
attention.
While chess is a type of purely intellectual learning, the fact
should not be lost sight of that the emotional accompaniment is
an important factor in the chess player's development as in all
other sorts of acquisition, and that emotion is ope of the
strongest influences in fixing impressions. Ideas which are
associated with strong emotions are kept before the mind for a
longer period than those which have little or no emotional
coloring and thus have much more chance of becoming per-
manently fixed. Numerous instances were noted in this study
in which situations which had aroused strong emotions were
continually before the mind and were so persistent as to banish
sleep and to drive out all other thoughts.
In this connection mention should be made of the effect of
error on one's progress. If one continues to commit errors
^Ebbinghaus: Ueber das Gedachtniss. Leipzig, 1885.
'Bryan and Harter: op. cit., p. 50.
THE PSYCHOI,OGY OF CHESS. 303
through ignorance of the fact that they are errors, he may re-
tard his development by falling into fixed habits of unsound
play; but if they are noted as errors, and especially if they
arouse a strong emotion, they are eliminated. The importance
of this becomes evident when we recall that a great part of the
player's progress consists in the elimination of unprofitable
moves. It is easy to see, also, that emotions, so far as they are
expressive of temperament and affect one's habits of play, may
exercise an important influence for good or bad upon one's
ability to win, as already pointed out in any earlier section.
3. Aids to Learning.
By study and practice the difficulties of the beginner are gradually
overcome and his faults corrected, though the latter are apt for a long
time to recur at unguarded moments, and some, especially the faults
of temperament (errors and oversights due to impulsiveness, rashness
and quick temper, for example), may never be wholly suppressed.
It is probable, indeed, that most of the faults of the earlier stages are
temporarily overcome many times before they can safely be given over
to the realm of the automatic, i. e., they crop out from time to time
when the attention is turned toward larger complexes of elements.
Of all the aids to learning, so soon as one has mastered the bare
rudiments of play, there is probably nothing like actual play over the
board, provided that one is willing to play slowly, study out the
causes of his misfortune and profit by them. The emotional stress
attending both success and failure at such a time is a great aid to
memory, as has already been suggested.
The concrete criticism of a superior player is of the greatest assist-
ance, but too many things must not be given at once, and what is
given must be applied immediately in actual play in order to insure
its retention.
In order to get some idea of the sources from which chess players
gain their knowledge of the game and the value which they attach to
them, questions were asked of my correspondents in regard to the
benefit derived from problem solution, the study of standard games,
end games and openings, and board play under different conditions.
Most, of course, had derived most of their knowledge from actual play
over the board.
The interest in problem solving is by no means universal. Many
state that they have never attempted to solve problems; others, that
they are not interested in them because they are artificial and me-
chanical and do not help one's general play. The replies indicate,
however, that problem solving is widespread among players. As to
its helpfulness in general play, the variety of opinion is great, varying
from the statement that it is a positive detriment to extravagant claims
for its utility for mental development in general. With a number of
players, the problem interest, if developed at all, was developed late,
i. e., long after they had learned to play. It is interesting to note
that few of these players think that problem solving has helped their
play. Others took up problems with the beginning of play and say
that they were greatly helped by their efforts to solve them. This
suggests what is probably the fact that solving problems helps one in
the early stages of his play, and this is in accord with my own experi-
ence. The reason for this is not hard to find. The history of problem
chess shows that in the beginning the problems were merely positions
304 CLBVELAND :
taken from actual games and consequently involved all the elements
of actual play. Much could then be derived from their solution which
would be of general service. Since that time, however, problem com-
position has changed very much, and the problems now are made to
conform to certain fixed rules, which have, from the standpoint of
many players, made them mechanical and artificial. They have lost
most of their resemblance to positions met with in actual play. No
doubt they are not of much benefit to players who have had consid-
erable experience and who are familiar with the principles involved
in their solution. With the beginner, on the other hand, the case is
different. He may learn something of the manner of giving check,
something of the powers of pieces in different combinations, and of
the value of position. They may help his powers of analysis in so far
as they involve general principles which are applicable to actual play,
and they may aid in improving his judgment of position. At the best,
however, they are far inferior to the study of end games and to actual
practice over the board. This latter statement seems borne out in
part by the fact that few, if any, great problem solvers or composers
are also great players.
Practically all agree that a knowledge of the openings is indispen-
sable. The advantage is evident. It enables one to place his pieces in
good positions relative to each other, to develop along sound lines, to
avoid disaster in the early stages of the game, to take advantage of
weak moves made by one's opponent, and what is also of great impor-
tance, it enables him to play with a minimum of effort during the
early stages of a game. It should be added that knowledge of the
openings and variations helps one to force the play along lines with
which he is most familiar. The easiest and quickest way to get this
knowledge is from the books, but many good players possess it who
have given little or no time to book study. They have gained it from
actual experience, and base their opening plays on principles derived
from this source.
A few think that replaying standard games does not help one's play,
and a still smaller number think it is a positive detriment, assigning
as a reason that it destroys one's originality, and causes him to over-
look advantages which slight variations from the known lines might
give. There may be a real danger here, but it is more than offset by
the advantages gained. Among the advantages are mentioned the op-
portunity to examine positions at leisure, to study comprehensive
plans of attack and defense involving particular combinations, to ap-
preciate the value of time and position, and finally to become familiar
with a number of oft-recurring situations. These situations, while
seldom identical, are often similar. Standard games also teach prin-
ciples and aid in the development of position judgment. It should be
stated, however, that the value of such games varies with the indi-
vidual, and up to a certain stage is in direct proportion to his chess
knowledge. The mere beginner learns little from them ; the chess
master also learns little from them. The one is unable to comprehend
them ; the other finds little in them that is unknown to him. The
games take on meaning in direct proportion to the amount of knowl-
edge that one brings to them ; and their value to any individual de-
pends on the number of new ideas he is able to carry away from them.
Playing with a weaker player is not considered a good thing by most
of my correspondents. They say it makes them careless, prone to
recklessness, and leads them into all sorts of extravagancies of play.
Several recommend never playing with a weaker player without giving
sufficient odds to make the game even. A few recommend playing
with a weaker player for the reason that, by lessening the amount of
THE PSYCHOIvOGY OP CHESS. 305
attention ordinarily given to the opponent's plans, the stronger player
is able to give freer play to his imagination than he would dare to do
if playing with one of equal strength.
Most say that playing with many different players has made their
style more flexible. A few, however, maintain that style of play is
individual and that nothing can change it. This contention, as was
pointed out above, is undoubtedly true in so far as fundamental traits
of character enter into the game. Those who answered that playing
with a number of different players has made their style more flexible,
appear to mean that to a certain extent it has enabled them to over-
come some faults due to temperament and that they have learned a
greater variety of methods of play.
III. General Summary of the Psychological Points.
Chess as a strongly competitive form of human play appeals
to the fundamental fighting impulse, but it appeals also to the
aesthetic and puzzle-solving interests ; and it affords the pleas-
ure of "being a cause."
Visual imagination is an important element in chess playing,
especially in blindfold chess, but it is not indispensable. Motor,
verbal, or auditory imagery may, and often does, occupy the
-chief place in the player's consciousness.
The mental qualities most utilized in chess playing are : a
strong chess memory, power of accurate analysis, quickness of
perception, strong constructive imagination and a power of far
reaching combination. These are chess qualities, however, and
skill at chess is not a universally valid index of high mental
endowment.
The logical type differs in the different stages of a game and
with the knowledge and skill of the player, approaching always
nearer, as his knowledge and skill increases, to that of the
syllogism.
The reasoning process is, in psychological terms, a sequence
of mental states due to shiftings of the focal point of attention,
the associations working strictly within the limits imposed by
the task or purpose.
In his learning the chess player passes through well defined
stages and these mark the necessary steps in his progress. The
most important psychological feature in the learning of chess
(and it seems equally true of all learning), is the progressive
organization 0/ knowledge, making possible the direction of the
player's attention to the relations of larger and more complex
units. The organization involves generalization, increasing sym-
bolism, and the multiplication of associations; it insures
prompter recall and increased potential meaning in the general
concepts; it releases attention from details and favors consequent
mental automatisms and ' 'short circuit' ' processes. Thus alone
is progress possible. Mental automatisms are usually perfected,
one may conjecture, after advance to the next higher stages of
learning.
3o6 ci,EVEi,AND :
Appendix: On ths Casb op a Feebi,b-minded Chess Pi,ayer.
During the course of this study several cases of chess playing among
the feeble-minded have been reported to the writer, but it has been
impossible to secure definite data except in one case. It is said that
in some instances a very high degree of chess skill was possessed by
men of very low mentality. An inmate of the Wisconsin Institution
for the Feeble-minded, is reported to have been able to cope success-
fully with very strong players. Very likely the strength of these
players has been very much overestimated, but the evidence is suffi-
cient to warrant us in saying that in chess as in other kinds of mental
activity a peculiar power is not incompatible with a very low average
of general mental ability.
The writer has been able to study at first hand one case of chess
playing by a man of low grade intelligence who is an inmate of the
department for the feeble-minded and criminally insane at the Massa-
chusetts State Farm. In the asylum records he is classed as a congeni-
tal idiot who has suffered degeneration since coming to the institution
in 1891. Previous to that time he had been an inmate of other institu-
tions for the insane. He has had and still has, though less frequently
than formerly, outbursts of rage, at which times he beats his head
against the wall. He says he does this because he loves his mother.
He is a sexual pervert and some of his outbursts followed his separa-
tion from other inmates of the institution whom he designates as
"friends." He is fifty-four years of age but looks much younger, is'
filthy in his personal habits, and presents a very peculiar appearance.
He stoops considerably and walks with the shuffling gait characteristic
of the feeble-minded. In one of the older asylum records some one
has noted the fact that he resembles an anthropoid ape in appear-
ance. His forehead is very low and receding, his maxillaries are very
protruding and the posterior portions of his head are so prominent
that his head resembles that of the African negro.
The term idiot is used to cover such a wide range of mental deficiency
that it conveys no very definite meaning, so that it will be necessary
to give a brief account of his attempts at mental work in order to con-
vey some idea of his general intelligence. His memory for some
things is fairly good, though it is not of special excellence. He re-
members faces quite well and for a considerable time. He also has a
fairly good memory for places, remembering, for instance, the town in
which he was brought up, the different institutions he has been in,
and the town in which some of his relatives live, and remembers all
these by name. He has no idea of time, but holds a few dates in
mind. For example, he said he came to the asylum in 1891, which
was correct. He knows the names of most of the months of the year,
but has no idea of their order. In January he was asked what month
it was and replied that he did n't know. He was then asked if it were
June and replied that it was the month before June. When asked
what month that was, replied: "That is the month of October." He
has had practically no schooling and can neither read nor write.
When asked why he didn't go to school when he was a boy he replied
that he was too thick-headed to learn. He repeated this on several
occasions.
The following questions were asked him: If you had two apples and
I gave you two more how many would you have then? How many
are five'times five? If you worked for me five days and I gave you a
dollar for every day you worked, how many dollars would you have,
To all these and to other questions he gave the same answer: " Don'?
know." Questions in regard to his name, the names of otherst
his age, and other simple questions he answers intelligently or
THB PSYCHOLOGY OP CHBSS. 307
■with his indifferent "Don't know." In this regard he may be
compared to a young child. There is this difference, however: he
does not show the curiosity of a child, and displays very little men-
tal iniative. He is like a child, however, in another respect: he is
very fond of toys, picture books, and especially of neckties. He asks
for them repeatedly, but only apparently when he notices them.
He enjoyed playing with my watch and with my ring and asked for
the latter several times. When told he could not have a thing or
promised it later he always replied "Thank you." He is unable to
tell time by the clock or watch, but almost always knows the hour
of the day, which he is no doubt able to determine from the
regularity of the institution life. In reply to a question he said that
he is twenty-one years old and that he had been that age for a long
time.
In regard to his chess playing I should say at the outset that he is
not a strong player, and that an average player of a year's experience
could probably play as well or better. It should be remembered,
however, that he has never studied the game at all, has never played
regularly, and has not played with many different players. There
was no way of determining how long he had known the game, except
from his own statements and these are, of course, not very certain.
He said he learned about three years ago, that no one had taught him
the moves, but that he learned them by watching others play. He
has played checkers for many years, but there is no trace in his game
at present of interference of association from this source. As is to be
expected from the circumstances under which he learned, and played,
his play shows very little variety, although there was some improve-
ment in this regard as well as in general chess ability during the
time I had him under observation. He has considerable familiarity
with certain situations and can be relied on to liieet them in certain
ways. He usually meets a threat, for example, at once and by dis-
lodging the threatening piece if possible. An analysis of his games
shows a number of oft recurring moves such as Kt-Rs, Q-B3, P-Q3,
and advancing a pawn one square to serve as a guard for a piece or a
pawn to be advanced at the next move. Attacking a piece with a
pawn, and "forking" two pieces are favorite methods of attack with
him. He makes his moves very rapidly and apparently with little or
no time for consideration, but usually waits very patiently for his
opponent to reply. If the effect of a move of his opponent is not very
remote, he notes it almost immediately. For instance, on one occas-
ion when a bishop attacked both of his rooks he announced at once
that one of them was lost, and on another occasion when his queen
was attacked by a knight, he announced at once that she was lost, a
fact which his opponent had not yet appreciated. It may be, of
course, that he had anticipated the dangerous move.
He had a great deal of difficulty with a set of chessmen of a pattern dif-
ferent from those he had been using. In the new set the king was larger
than the queen, while in the old set the reverse was the case. He was
utterly unable to use them until, at his request, a piece of colored
cloth, which had been tied around the old queen, was fastened to the
new one. After that he had little difficulty with the new set.
At times he seemed to see a situation very quickly, but to be unable
to retain it in mind when he attempted to meet it. For instance,
when trying to get out of check, he moved his king back into check
several times, that is, he would find a move impossible, recall it and
then a little later attempt it again.
On the whole it is not too much to say that his game compares quite
favorably with those of players whose advantages in the way of in-
3o8
CLBVBLAND.
struction, study, and practice have been much greater than his, and
there is no reason to doubt that with more practice and instruction he
would be able to improve his game considerably.
Our conclusions from the study of this case must be, it seems to me,
that chess skill is not an index of general intelligence, that the rea-
soning involved in chess playing is reasoning within very narrow
limits, and that a considerable degree of chess skill is possible to one
who is mentally deficient in almost every other line.
The following records of games played by this player will indicate
to those who are familiar with the game something of his chess ability.
The games are chosen as fairly representative of his play during the
time he was studied, which extended a little over two months, with
an interruption of three weeks between the last observation and the
one just preceding it.
Game No. z.
white (feeble-
minded player)
1P-Q4
2P-K3
3 Q-KB3
4 P-QB3
5 Kt-KR3
6 Q-Kt3
7 P-KB3
8 QPxP
9 P-KB4
10 QKt-R3
11Q-B3
12 KtPxB
13 K-K2
14 KKt-KtS
15 Kt-QKt5
16 P.QR3
17 P-Kt4
18 KtxKBP
19 P-QR4
20 PxP
21 K-Qsq.
22 B-Q2
23 B-Ksq.
24 KR-Kt
25 K-Q2
26 K-Kt2
27 Kt-Q3
28 PxKt
29 R-Qr
30 B-Kt4
31 K-Ktsq.
32K-B
Black.
P-Q4
Kt-QB3
P-K4
Kt-B3
QB-Kts
Q-K2
B-R4
KtxP
Kt-QB3
KKt-K5
BxQ
Q-R5ch
Kt-KB3
KB-B4
0-0
P-KR3
B-QKt3
RxKt
P-QR4
BxP
R-K2
B-Kt3
Q.R4
QxBp (ch)
QxP (ch;
QxR
QKtxKt
BxQP
QxKB
Q-QB5 (ch)
Q-Kt6 (ch;
32 Q-Kt7 (check
mate)
White
1P-K4
2 Kt-KBs
3P-Q3
4 B-KtS
5 KtxKP
6 B-KB4
7 BxKKt
8 Kt-QB4
9 KB-K2
10 B-KR5 (ch)
11 P-Q4
12 Kt-QR3
13 P-Q5
14O-O
15 Q-K2
16 P-Ks
17 KPxP
18 R-Ksq.
19 RxB
20 R-Ksq.
21 R-K8 (ch)
22 RxR (check-
mate)
Black (Feeble
minded player)
P-K4
Q-KBs
Kt-KR3
Q-QB3
Q-k:3
P-KB3
PxB
Q-QB3
P-QKU
K-Qsq.
QxKt
Q-B3
Q-Kt3
B-QB4
B-QR3
P-QKts
BxQ
QxP
QxQKtP
QxKt
RxR
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